Sharpe's Rifles (22 page)

Louisa was just as contrite. “No, I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have sworn.”

“I can’t imagine you giving up swearing, even for me.” There was a trace of her old
mischievousness, a hint of a smile, and Sharpe was glad of it.

“It’s just that your aunt and uncle will worry about you,” he said lamely. “And we’re probably
going to have to fight again, and a fight’s no place for a woman.”

Louisa said nothing for a moment, then shrugged. “The Frenchman, de l’Eclin? He offended me. I
think he perceived me as a spoil of war.”

“He was offensive?”

“I imagine he thought he was being very gallant.” Louisa, dressed in the blue skirts and coat
in which she had fled the travelling coach, paced about her small room. “Would I offend you by
saying that I preferred your protection to his?”

“I’m flattered, miss.” Sharpe felt himself being drawn into her conspiracy. He had come here
to warn Louisa that Bias Vivar disapproved of her presence, and to tell her to avoid the Spaniard
as much as was possible; instead he felt the attraction of her vivacity.

“I was tempted to stay with the French,” Louisa confessed, “not because of the Colonel’s
intrinsic charms, but because Godalming would surely have been agog to hear of my adventures with
the army of the Corsican ogre, would it not? Perhaps we would have been sent to Paris and paraded
before the mob like Ancient Britons displayed before the Romans.”

“I doubt that,” Sharpe said.

“I rather doubted it, too. Instead I foresaw a most tedious time in which I would be forced to
listen to my aunt’s interminable complaints about the war, the lost testaments, her discomforts,
French cooking, your shortcomings, her husband’s timidity, my forwardness, the weather, her
bunions - do you wish me to continue?”

Sharpe smiled. “No.”

Louisa teased out her dark curls with her fingers, then shrugged. “I came, Lieutenant, because
of a whim. Because if I am to be stranded in a war then I would rather be stranded with my own
side than with the enemy.”

“I think Major Vivar fears you’ll be a hindrance to us, miss.”

“Oh,” Louisa said with mock foreboding, then walked to the window and frowned down at the
Spaniard who still stood with the two priests. “Does Major Vivar not like women?”

“I think he does.”

“He just thinks they get in the way?”

“In battle, they do. If you’ll pardon me, miss.”

Louisa mocked Sharpe with a deprecating smile. “I promise not to stand in the way of your
sword, Lieutenant. And I’m sorry if I have caused you inconvenience. Now you can tell me just why
we’re here, and what you plan to do. I can’t stay out of the way unless I know exactly where the
way leads, can I?”

“I don’t know what’s happening, miss.”

Louisa grimaced. “Does that mean you don’t trust me?”

“It means I don’t know.” Sharpe told her about the strongbox and Vivar’s secretiveness, and
about their long journey which had been dogged by the French Dragoons. “All I know is that the
Major wants to take the box to Santiago, but why, I don’t know, and what’s in it, I don’t
know.”

Louisa was delighted with the mystery. “But you will find out?”

“I hope so.”

“I shall ask Major Vivar directly!”

“I don’t think you should, miss.”

“Of course not. The ogre-ish Papist Spaniard doesn’t want me interfering in his
adventure.”

“It’s not an adventure, miss, but war.”

“War is the moment, Mr Sharpe, when we loose the bonds of convention, do you not think so? I
do. And they are very constricting bonds, especially in Godalming. I insist upon knowing what is
in Major Vivar’s box! Do you think it is jewels?”

“No, miss.”

“The crown of Spain! The sceptre and orb! Of course it is, Mr Sharpe. Napoleon wishes to put
the crown on his head, and your friend is denying it him! Don’t you see? We are carrying a
dynasty’s regalia to safety!” She clapped her hands with delight. “I shall insist upon seeing
these treasures. Major Vivar is going to reveal everything to you, is he not?”

“He said he might tell me after supper. I think it rather depends on those priests.”

Tn that case we might never know.“ Louisa grimaced. ”But I can have supper with
you?“

The request embarrassed Sharpe, for he doubted whether Vivar would want Louisa present, but
nor did he know a tactful way of telling the girl that she was being too persistent. “I don’t
know,” he said weakly.

“Of course I can dine with you! You don’t expect me to starve, do you? Tonight, Mr Sharpe, we
shall look upon the jewels of an empire!” Louisa was enchanted with the whole idea. “If only Mr
Bufford could see me now!”

Sharpe recalled that Mr Bufford was the ink-manufacturing Methodist who hoped to marry Louisa.
“He would doubtless pray for you?”

“Most devoutly.” She laughed. “But it is cruel to mock him, Mr Sharpe, especially as I merely
delay the time when I must accept his hand.” Her enthusiasm visibly evaporated in the face of
reality. “I presume that once you have solved this mystery, you will go to Lisbon?”

“If there’s still a garrison there, yes.”

“And I shall have to go with you.” She sighed, as a child might sigh for the ending of a treat
that had yet to begin. Then her face cleared, reverting to an expression of mischievous delight.
“But you will ask Major Vivar’s permission for me to dine with the gentlemen? I promise to behave
myself.”

To Sharpe’s surprise, Bias Vivar was not at all disconcerted by Louisa’s request. “Of course
she may have supper with us.”

“She’s very curious about the strongbox,” Sharpe warned.

“Naturally, aren’t you?”

Thus Louisa was present that night when Sharpe at last discovered why Bias Vivar had lied to
him, why the Cazadores had ridden to rescue him, and why the Spanish Major had journeyed so
obsessively westward through the chaos of winter and defeat.

That night, too, Sharpe felt himself drawn ever more deeply into a world of mystery and
weirdness; a world where the estadea drifted like flames in the night and sprites inhabited
streams; Bias Vivar’s world.

Sharpe, Louisa, Vivar and Lieutenant Davila dined in a room punctuated by thick pillars which
supported a barrel-vaulted ceiling. They were joined by the two priests. A fire was lit, blankets
were spread on the floor, and dishes of millet, beans, fish, and mutton were served. One of the
priests, Father Borellas, was a short, plump man who spoke passable English and seemed to enjoy
practising it on Sharpe and Louisa. Borellas told them that he had a parish in Santiago de
Compostela; a small, very poor parish. Pouring Sharpe wine and ever eager that the Rifleman’s
plate did not empty, he seemed at pains to exaggerate his humble status. The other priest, he
explained, was a rising man, a true hidalgo, and a future prince of the church.

That other priest was the sacrist of Santiago’s cathedral, a canon and a man who, from the
very first, made it plain that he disliked and distrusted Lieutenant Richard Sharpe. If Father
Alzaga spoke English then he did not betray that skill to Sharpe. Indeed, Alzaga barely
acknowledged his presence, confining his conversation to Bias Vivar whom he perhaps perceived as
his social equal. His hostility was so blatant, and so jarring, that Borellas felt constrained to
explain it. “He does not love the English.”

“Many Spaniards don’t,” Louisa, who seemed unnaturally subdued by the evident hostility in the
room, commented drily.

“You’re heretics, you see. And your army has run away.” The priest spoke in soft apology.
“Politics, politics. I do not understand the politics. I am just a humble priest,
Lieutenant.”

But Borellas was a humble priest whose knowledge of Santiago de Compostela’s alleyways and
courtyards had saved the sacrist from the French. He told Sharpe how they had hidden in a
plasterer’s yard while the French cavalrymen searched the houses. “They shot many people.” He
crossed himself. “If a man had a fowling gun, they said he was an enemy. Bang. If someone
protested at the killing, bang.” Borellas crumbled a piece of hard bread. “I did not think I
would live to see an enemy army on Spanish soil. This is the nineteenth century, not the
twelfth!”

Sharpe looked at the haughty-faced Alzaga who clearly had not expected, nor liked, to see
protestant English soldiers on Spanish soil. “What is a sacrist?”

“He is the cathedral’s treasurer. Not a clerk, you understand,” Borellas was eager that Sharpe
should not underesti-mate the tall priest, “but the man responsible for the cathedral’s
treasures. That is not why he is here, but because he is a most important churchman. Don Bias
would have liked the Bishop to come, but the Bishop would not talk to me, and the most important
man I could find was Father Alzaga. He hates the French, you see.” He flinched as the sacrist’s
voice was raised in anger and, as if to cover his embarrassment, offered Sharpe more dried fish
and began a long explanation of the kinds offish caught on the Galician coast.

Yet no discussion offish could hide the fact that Vivar and Alzaga were involved in a bitter
altercation; each man deeply entrenched in opposing views which, equally plainly, involved Sharpe
himself. Vivar, making some point, would gesture at the Rifleman. Alzaga, refuting it, seemed to
sneer in his direction. Lieutenant Davila concentrated on his food, evidently wanting no part in
the fierce argument while Father Borellas, abandoning his attempts to distract Sharpe’s
attention, reluctantly agreed to explain what was being said. “Father Alzaga wants Don Bias to
use Spanish troops.” He spoke too softly for the other to overhear.

“Spanish troops for what?”

“That is for Don Bias to explain.” Borellas listened for another moment. “Don Bias is saying
that to find Spanish infantry would mean persuading a Captain-General, and all the
Captain-Generals are in hiding; and anyway a Captain-General would hesitate, or he would say he
must have the permission of the Galician Junta, and the Junta has fled Corunna, so he might apply
to the Central Junta in Seville instead, and in one or two months’ time the Captain-General might
say that perhaps there were men, but then he would insist that one of his own favourite officers
be placed in charge of the expedition, and anyway by that time Don Bias says it would be too
late.” Father Borellas shrugged. “I think Don Bias is right.”

“Too late for what?”

“That is for Don Bias to explain.”

Vivar was speaking adamantly now, chopping his hand down in abrupt, fierce gestures that
appeared to mute the priest’s opposition. When he finished, Alzaga seemed to yield reluctantly on
some part of the argument, and the concession made Bias Vivar turn towards Sharpe. “Would you
mind very much describing your career, Lieutenant?”

“My career?”

“Slowly? One of us will translate.”

Sharpe, embarrassed by the request, shrugged. “I was born…“

“Not that bit, I think,” Vivar said hastily. “Your fighting career, Lieutenant. Where was your
first battle?”

“In Flanders.”

“Start there.”

For ten uncomfortable minutes Sharpe described his career in terms of the battles he had
fought. He spoke first of Flanders, where he had been one of the Duke of York’s unfortunate ten
thousand, then, with more confidence, of India. The pillared room, lit by its pinewood fire and
cheap rushlights, seemed an odd place to be talking of Seringapa-tam, Assaye, Argaum, and
Gawilghur. Yet the others listened avidly, and even Alzaga seemed intrigued by the translated
tales of far-off battles on arid plains. Louisa, her eyes shining, followed the story
closely.

When Sharpe had finished his description of the savage assault on the mud walls of Gawilghur,
no one spoke for a few seconds. Resin flared in the fire. Alzaga, in his harsh voice, broke the
silence and Vivar translated. “Father Alzaga says he heard that the Tippoo Sultan had a clockwork
model of a tiger mauling an Englishman to death.”

Sharpe looked into the priest’s eyes. “A lifesize model, yes.”

Vivar translated again. “He would dearly like to have seen that model.”

“I believe it’s in London now,” Sharpe said.

The priest must have recognized the challenge in those words for he said something which Vivar
did not interpret.

“What was that?” Sharpe asked.

“It was nothing,” Vivar said a little too carelessly. “Where did you fight after India,
Lieutenant?”

“Father Alzaga said, ”Louisa astonished the room by raising her voice, and by her evident
knowledge of Spanish which she had concealed till this moment, “that this night he will pray for
the soul of the Tippoo Sultan, because the Tippoo Sultan slew many Englishmen.”

Till now Sharpe had been embarrassed in describing his career, but the priest’s scorn touched
his soldier’s pride. “And I killed the Tippoo Sultan.”

“You did?” Father Borellas’s voice was sharp with disbelief.

“In the water gate’s tunnel at Seringapatam.“

“He had no bodyguard?” Vivar asked.

“Six men,” Sharpe said. “His picked warriors.” He looked from face to face, knowing he need
say no more. Alzaga demanded a translation, and grunted when he heard it.

Vivar, who had been pleased with Sharpe’s performance, smiled at the Rifleman. “And where did
you fight after India, Lieutenant? Were you in Portugal last year?”

Sharpe described the Portuguese battlefields of Rolica and Vimeiro where, before he was
recalled to England, Sir Arthur Wellesley had trounced the French. “I was only a Quartermaster,”
he said, “but I saw some fighting.”

Again there was silence and Sharpe, watching the hostile priest, sensed he had passed some
kind of a test. Alzaga spoke grudgingly, and the words made Vivar smile again. “You have to
understand, Lieutenant, that I need the blessing of the church for what I have to do, and, if you
are to help me, then the Church must approve of you. The Church would prefer that I use Spanish
troops, but that, alas, is not possible. With some reluctance, therefore, Father Alzaga accepts
that your experience of battle will be of some small use.”